1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording apparatus which can record and read digital data, particularly to an information recording apparatus which can print a label on the label surface (a printing surface for text and images) on the opposite side of the data recording surface of an information recording medium such as an optical disk.
2. Description of the Related Art
An information recording apparatus before such as an optical disk apparatus is known as an apparatus in which an optical disk medium having a few megabytes to a few gigabytes of recording capacity such as a CD (Compact Disk) and a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) is carried into the apparatus by a housing mechanism, it is clamped (chucked) to a spindle motor, and data is read out or read and written by an information recording unit such as an optical head having a lens mounted thereon, and the apparatus is generally widely used.
In addition, in recent years, a BD (Blu-Ray Disk) and a HD-DVD (High Definition Digital Versatile Disk) which are capable of recording in high density are devices having the same basic configuration, and such an optical disk medium is also developed that can achieve the recording capacity five to ten times greater than that of a medium before such as DVD by forming a light source to have shorter wavelengths, or by increasing the NA (Numerical Aperture) value of a lens.
An increasing number of information recording apparatus including an optical disk apparatus using an information recording medium capable of recording in high density such as an optical disk medium multiplies a volume of information to be recorded. In addition, an increasing number of recorded information recording media causes the difficulty to manage a large number of information recording media on which information is recorded.
In contrast to this, various methods are proposed that display management information about an information recording medium such as an optical disk medium on a medium such as a disk. For example, Patent Reference 1 (JP-A-2004-280953) describes a method that records management information about an optical disk medium on the recording surface of the disk so that the management information can be visually recognized. More specifically, a method is disclosed in which the laser beam of an optical pickup is used to record management information in an area different from the information recording area on the recording surface of an optical disk.
In addition, it is also performed that text and images corresponding to information recorded on an information recording medium are printed on the label surface that is on the opposite side of the recording surface of the information recording medium such as an optical disk. More specifically, for example, a printer of the ink jet system that can print a label is used to print on the label surface of an optical disk. In addition to this, some of optical disk apparatus are commercially available that have an ink jet print head incorporated therein to print labels. For the optical disk apparatus which can print labels, a method is proposed in which a print head is mounted on an optical disk apparatus to print a label on a rotating optical disk (for example, see Patent Reference 2 (JP-T-2002-812140)), and an optical disk apparatus is proposed that has a printing function incorporated therein (for example, see Patent Reference 3 (Japanese Patent No. 3341572)). In the optical disk apparatus described in Patent References 2 and 3, the print head is configured to move the radial axis of the optical disk.